Pregnancy is a crucial moment in a woman’s life. As you carry another’s life inside your body, your health must be in its best condition for the baby to grow healthy and properly. It’s also one of the most beautiful moments as you become the giver of life to another human being — a nurturer of a miracle. However, it’s not all perfect and beautiful. Most advertisements that include pregnant women show them glowing and having the best time of their lives but never show how women look like with the symptoms of morning sickness, stomach aches, and such. These are just some of the common symptoms most pregnant women have, and there’s more that they don’t talk about; more that gets uglier.
Unspoken Pregnancy Symptoms
Here are some of the pregnant symptoms people rarely talk about:
Bloatedness
Sometimes you’ll feel like you have to go even when you don’t. Another thing to blame pregnancy hormones for is the feeling of always being bloated. It also causes constipation. You may be bummed about being bloated, but it is an effect of a vital process happening in your digestive system.
During your pregnancy, your digestive system will slow down so that nutrients have enough additional time for your bloodstream to absorb them and reach your baby.
Excessive Sweating
When you’re pregnant, your body will suddenly turn up the heat. This is because of the hormonal swings you’ll experience in different periods of your trimester. It usually happens in your first and third trimester, together with your post-partum period. Once your hormones kick in, it may trick your hypothalamus into thinking that it’s hot. Your hypothalamus is the part of your brain that’s in-charge in regulating your body temperature. With this, your body will react to the perceived heat, and your sweating reflex will be the result of your bodily reaction. It can get extremely uncomfortable, and there’s no way to stop it. What you can do is to learn how you can manage sweating during pregnancy.
Discharge
Most women experience vaginal discharge as a daily experience. Although it’s not often that people make associations between discharge and pregnancy, more often than not, pregnant women will have a pale-yellow or sticky-with discharge from their first trimester and up to their due date. Causes of this discharge include the increase of hormones and blood flow around the vaginal area.
Heartburn
Pregnancy hormones are almost always the ones to blame. They can relax the valve between your oesophagus and stomach. When the valve is relaxed, your stomach acid can leak into your oesophagus. This will then cause you heartburn. You can prevent this by avoiding fizzy drinks, juices, citrus fruits, spicy foods, and the likes. Eating more frequent and in smaller amounts can also prevent this.
Others
Some of the strangest experiences you’ll have during pregnancy are your feet growing, your belly button becoming an outie as your ribs change shape as they expand, and more. When your feet grow during pregnancy, they might become permanent, so you’ll have to get used to and be prepared to buy new shoes. Also, your hair colour can change. Many pregnant women attest to this, saying that her hair colour has changed into blond from her wispy auburn hair.